Has Syria Become Al-Qaeda's New Base For Terror
Strikes On Europe?
Exclusive investigation: The terror network in Syria
includes dozens of European members, and wants to get
its hands on Assad's stockpile of chemical weapons.

By Florian Flade and Clemens Wergin

December 19, 2012 -- 'DIE
WELT"
-- A photograph
from Syria shows a large man in fighting garb,
carrying an assault rifle. His head is wrapped in black
cloth, and the sign on his armband indicates beyond a
doubt that he is an Islamist. But the man is not Syrian;
he identifies himself as "holy warrior Abu Ahmad al-Almani"
from Germany.

The picture of him was posted on Facebook. The
information the man provides about himself says that he
was born in Lebanon, and until recently lived in
Germany. He left to join the fight against Syrian
dictator Bashar al-Assad.

But now "Abu Ahmad" is an Islamic fighter, and
he’s calling for German Muslims to join the cause. "Dear
brethren, come join our ranks, fight with our brothers
as if we were a wall. Faith is the weapon our enemies
most fear."

According to a Die Welt investigation, the
fighter from Germany is only one of hundreds of
foreigners who have
associated with Syrian rebels in their fight against
the Assad regime. Most of them are young men from North
Africa, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. But
more and more Europeans are joining the militia
fighters.

Western intelligence agencies believe that there are
some 100 Muslims with European passports involved in the
war in Syria, Die Welt has learned. A great
many of these are fighters, some are
radical Islamists, and see it as their duty to join
the “Holy War” against the Syrian strongman.

"There could be many reasons for somebody to travel to
Syria," one source told DieWelt.
"Somebody might want to help their family. Somebody else
might aspire to become a martyr. Some only become
Islamists as a result of taking part in the fighting."

German intelligence views the travel of radical Muslims
to Syria with concern. The assumption is that most of
them plan to take up fighting against government troops.

From the standpoint of intelligence agents, the
situation of the Syrian opposition remains highly
opaque. According to the Bundesnachrichtendienst
(BND) – the German intelligence service – the
biggest problem for
foreign jihadists is the chaotic situation of
countless warring parties, citizens’ militias, and rebel
groups. Only very few Islamists coming in from Europe
know anything about the group they join up with, or what
that group’s ideology and goals actually are.

The most radical of the rebel groups is probably Jabat
al-Nusra, which has a jihadist orientation and wants to
create a theocracy in Syria. Jabat al-Nusra is
considered to be a regional branch of al-Qaeda, but the
group -- which is said to have about 1,000 fighters --
has deliberately avoided official affiliation with the
terror network so far, for reasons of image and
strategy. Intelligence operatives believe that Jabat al-Nusra
doesn’t want to give Assad fodder to nourish his claims
that the opposition consists of
al-Qaeda fighters.

Egypt's terrain is
ripe

Western intelligence operatives say that al-Nusra runs
several large training camps in Syria where Islamists
with fighting experience – veterans of the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan – train new recruits, including
Islamists from Western countries. In a situation similar
to the al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan in the 1990s,
hundreds of Islamists are presently being trained in the
use of fire arms, bomb-making and hand-to-hand combat in
Syrian camps managed by Jabat al-Nusra.

Al-Qaeda boss Ayman al-Zawahiri is focusing his efforts
on Syria and Egypt, trying to build new structures in
these two key countries since many of the established
al-Qaeda offshoots no longer listen to the network's
leadership after the death of Osama
Bin Laden, according to information from Western
intelligence sources.

Al-Zawahiri's contact in Syria is Abu Muhammad
al-Julani, the Jabat al-Nusra leader.
In Egypt, Jamal al-Kashef and Sheik Adel Shahato
look after al-Qaeda interests. Al-Qaeda’s aim is to
fight the "heretical regimes" in both countries; to
al-Zawahiri the new regime of Islamist President
Mohammed Morsi also counts as one of these. In one of
his recent speeches, al-Zawahiri called for attacks on
the Egyptian military to help bring down Morsi’s
government.

According to intelligence sources, several al-Qaeda
leaders who were originally from Egypt have returned
there after years of fighting in Pakistan and
Afghanistan. Other leaders and active members have been
released from prison by the Morsi government. The
al-Qaeda cell in Egypt is thought to have been
involved in the attack on the American consulate in
Benghazi, Libya.

On
October 24, Egyptian security forces however did raid a
"safe house" in Cairo that was used by al-Qaeda members
under al-Kashef’s orders. One al-Qaeda fighter was
killed, and others were taken into custody. A large
weapons depot and explosives were found at the site. In
several other raids over the next few days, 20 more
al-Qaeda operatives were arrested. Egyptian sources said
the cell was directly under al-Zawahiri’s orders and was
working to
bring the Morsi government down.

Because of the political turmoil in Egypt, the country
has become a stomping ground for
global jihadists. A German al-Qaeda fighter, Denis
Cuspert, who has threatened attacks in Germany, has gone
to Cairo. Many German and European fighters pretend to
be going to Egypt to study Islam or Arabic, but then
head for al-Qaeda training camps in Egypt, the Sinai or
Libya.

Chemical and
biological stockpiles

But the most important field of operations for al-Qaeda
at the moment is Syria. According to Die Welt’s
information from Western intelligence sources, last year
al-Zawahiri sent at least three organizers to Syria to
create jihadist groups to carry out his instructions.

Particularly worrying for the West are al-Qaeda efforts
to get their hands on chemical and biological weapons.
Local al-Qaeda operatives have allegedly already been
told to find out where these weapons are stockpiled.
Intelligence sources also say that al-Qaeda is looking
for experts in Syria to train their fighters in how to
use the weapons.

Al-Qaeda’s efforts are said to be focused mainly around
Deraa in the southwestern part of the country, and
Aleppo, where its HQ is thought to be located.

Another major concern for Western intelligence services
is al-Zawahiri’s intention to train extremists with
European passports in Egypt and Syria so that they can
build
terror cells in Europe, and to see Syria turn into a
kind of Waziristan – a remote part of Pakistan where
members can move about pretty much unhindered.

For future attacks in Europe, extremists with European
passports are particularly valuable – men like the
Spaniard Rachid Wahbi who arrived in Syria via Turkey in
June 2012 headed for a training camp for European
fighters, or Mehdi al-Harati, a Libyan with an Irish
passport. He was one of the founders of the Tripoli
Brigade, the first rebel unit in Libya. He now leads the
rebels in the north of Syria.

According to Western intelligence sources, al-Nusra
commander Abu Mohammad al-Julani is already planning to
expand his base of operations to Europe via Turkey. He’s
preparing to make Syria – after the fall of the Assad
regime – a center of jihadist activity with branches in
other countries.

Some of al-Julani’s al-Qaeda
cells are already up and running in other countries
in the region, and Western intelligence operatives say
he is in the process of building additional cells in
Europe.

It
has been noted that so far Jabat al-Nusra has avoided
using European fighters in suicide missions. Apparently
these fighters are too valuable to “burn” right now –
their European passports will come in good stead when
the fighting in Syria is over and the terror network
enters a Europe-oriented expansion phase.

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